Ukraine bills clear House, Senate

The House and Senate easily passed measures that would provide aid to Ukraine and impose sanctions on Russia, edging Congress closer to sending a comprehensive package to the White House to respond to the crisis in Eastern Europe.

The House approved the legislation in a 399-19 vote while the Senate simply cleared it in a voice vote.

Story Continued Below

The two chambers have differing legislation, though the variances are minor after Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) agreed to drop a provision to reform the International Monetary Fund that Republicans opposed. House and Senate leaders will have to reconcile the remaining differences before sending a bill to President Barack Obama for his signature.

The House plans to take up and clear the Senate-passed legislation by unanimous consent by the end of this week, lawmakers and aides said. Separately, the House and Senate will swiftly clear a measure that would boost U.S. international broadcasting into eastern Ukraine and Crimea — a move that its backers say is needed to battle against Russian propaganda.

Those provisions were initially included in the House legislation, but not in the Senate’s measure. The Senate unanimously approved the broadcasting bill on Thursday evening before adjourning for the week.

The swift Hill response to the Ukraine crisis came after a bizarre and fast-moving series of circumstances Thursday morning that was thrown in flux because of a separate House measure on payment for doctors who treat Medicare patients.

The Republican-led House was poised to move first on passing its Ukraine legislation, but was held up indefinitely due to the suspense over the so-called “doc fix” — making it likely that the Senate would proceed instead. But House GOP leaders suddenly pushed through the Medicare measure by voice vote and abruptly called up the Ukraine measure as senators were preparing to vote.

Senators had to first get rid of the IMF provisions from the original bill, which they did in a lopsided 98-2 vote. Then the chamber passed the overall Ukraine package in a voice vote that came and went in a blink of an eye.

The two senators who did not get on board with the bill even without the IMF reforms were Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and Dean Heller of Nevada. Heller said he shared concerns Paul has previously raised that loans made to Kiev could ultimately be used to pay off debt that Ukraine owes to Russia.

“Right now, I’m concentrated on domestic issues and just sending a billion dollars in loan guarantees, I’m just not sure … how it was going to be spent,” Heller said.

The vote also pitted Paul against two other potential Republican contenders for the 2016 presidential nomination on a key foreign policy measure. Sens. Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas backed Ukraine aid without the IMF provisions.